Ezekiel 7:12

The time is come, the day draweth near: let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Benson Commentary

Ezekiel 7:12-15. Let not the buyer rejoice, &c. — The buyer will have no reason to rejoice, because he will not enjoy what he hath bought; nor the seller have cause to mourn for having been obliged to part with his possessions, of which the approaching desolation of the country and the captivity would otherwise have deprived him. For the seller shall not return to that which was sold, &c. — The year of jubilee shall be no advantage to the sellers; for though they should live till it come, yet they shall not enjoy the benefit of the law, (Leviticus 25:13,) nor be restored again to their possessions, as the Chaldeans will have seized upon their lands, who will pay no regard to the year of jubilee, with respect to restoring to every one his old inheritance. For the vision — Or the prophecy; is touching the whole multitude — Is concerning the whole people; which shall not return — Or, as Bishop Newcome reads it. It, that is, the vision or prophecy, shall not return, namely, unfulfilled; or, it shall not be void. Neither shall any strengthen himself in iniquity — Neither shall any one secure himself by acting wickedly. Or, “And though they harden themselves in sin, and shut their eyes against the judgments which hang over their heads, these will at last unavoidably overtake them.” They have blown the trumpet — The house of Israel have summoned in all fit for arms: see Jeremiah 6:1. But none goeth to the battle — There is not a man going to the war. For the people’s hearts fail them — Looking upon themselves as given up to destruction. For my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof — That displeasure which takes away their courage. The sword is without — In the countries; and the pestilence and the famine within — The besieged city. He that is in the field — Whoever is in the field; shall die with the sword — Of the Chaldean soldiers. And he that is in the city — Whither he had fled for safety; famine and pestilence shall devour him — Shall eat him up. You, O Jews, shall be food for these insatiable destroyers.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

7:1-15 The abruptness of this prophecy, and the many repetitions, show that the prophet was deeply affected by the prospect of these calamities. Such will the destruction of sinners be; for none can avoid it. Oh that the wickedness of the wicked might end before it bring them to an end! Trouble is to the impenitent only an evil, it hardens their hearts, and stirs up their corruptions; but there are those to whom it is sanctified by the grace of God, and made a means of much good. The day of real trouble is near, not a mere echo or rumour of troubles. Whatever are the fruits of God's judgments, our sin is the root of them. These judgments shall be universal. And God will be glorified in all. Now is the day of the Lord's patience and mercy, but the time of the sinner's trouble is at hand.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The day - Either of temporal or final judgment.

It was grievous for an Israelite to part with his land. But now the seller need not mourn his loss, nor the buyer exult in him gain. All should live the pitiful lives of strangers in another country.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

12. let not … buyer rejoice—because he has bought an estate at a bargain price.

nor … seller mourn—because he has had to sell his land at a sacrifice through poverty. The Chaldeans will be masters of the land, so that neither shall the buyer have any good of his purchase, nor the seller any loss; nor shall the latter (Eze 7:13) return to his inheritance at the jubilee year (see Le 25:13). Spiritually this holds good now, seeing that "the time is short"; "they that rejoice should be as though they rejoiced not, and they that buy as though they possessed not": Paul (1Co 7:30) seems to allude to Ezekiel here. Jer 32:15, 37, 43, seems to contradict Ezekiel here. But Ezekiel is speaking of the parents, and of the present; Jeremiah, of the children, and of the future. Jeremiah is addressing believers, that they should hope for a restoration; Ezekiel, the reprobate, who were excluded from hope of deliverance.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The time is come: see Ezekiel 7:2,3,6,7. Though the buyer honestly possess what his money purchased, yet let him not hug himself in the thought of his riches.

Nor the seller mourn: men usually part with their estates grieving that they must transmit their right to others, but let sellers now think how little a while they could have kept them, and how little time they shall keep them who have bought them. Wrath; such wrath from God, an offended Judge, and from insolent enemies, that buyer and seller shall find their state much alike.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The time is come, the day draweth near,.... According to the Targum, the time of the recompence of iniquities, and the day of punishment of sins; of the sins of the Jews, by the Chaldean army, which no doubt is true; but it seems chiefly to refer to what follows: and the sense is, the time was coming on, in which

let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn; it is usual for the buyer of houses or lands to rejoice, because an addition is made to his estate, and especially when he has made, as he thinks, a good purchase; and the seller, he mourns because he is obliged to part with his estate to pay his debts, and so is reduced in his circumstances; but now the time was coming when the one would have no occasion to rejoice, nor the other to mourn; not the buyer rejoice, because, being carried captive, he cannot enjoy his possessions; nor the seller mourn, because, if he had not sold his house or field, he must have left it:

for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof; upon the whole body of the Jewish nation, high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, buyer and seller; those that are in good circumstances, and those that are in bad ones; so that hereby they were all upon a level, in the same case and condition.

Geneva Study Bible

The time is come, the day draweth near: let not the buyer {i} rejoice, nor the seller {k} mourn: for wrath is upon all its multitude.

(i) For the present profit.

(k) For he will lose nothing.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

12. The inhabitants shall be overwhelmed in a common ruin, in which all social relations shall be forgotten—the buyer shall not rejoice nor the seller sorrow. A universal “wrath” shall be on all classes, involving them in a common destruction. Cf. Isaiah 24:2, “It shall be as with the buyer so with the seller, as with the lender so with the borrower,” &c.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 12. - Let not the buyer rejoice, etc. We have to read, between the lines, the story of Ezekiel's companions in exile. They belonged, it will be remembered, to the nobler and wealthier class (2 Kings 25:19). They, it would seem, had been compelled to sell their estates at a price which made the "buyer rejoice and the seller mourn." In each case the joy and the sorrow would be but transient. Wrath had gone out against the whole multitude. In Micah 2:2 and Isaiah 5:8 we have parallel instances of the advantage taken by the rich of the distress of the old tree holders. In the story of Jeremiah 32:6-16 we have, though from a very different point of view, the history of a like purchase, while the city was actually surrounded by the Chaldeans. The neglect of the sabbatic year (Jeremiah 34:8-17) makes it probable that the jubilee year also (if, indeed, it had ever been more than an ideal) had fallen into desuetude, and that the buyers comforted themselves with the thought that the land they had got, on cheap terms, weald belong to them and their children forever. Ezekiel 7:12

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Second Strophe

Ezekiel 7:10. Behold the day, behold, it cometh; the fate springeth up; the rod sprouteth; the pride blossometh. Ezekiel 7:11. The violence riseth up as the rod of evil: nothing of them, nothing of their multitude, nothing of their crowd, and nothing glorious upon them. Ezekiel 7:12. The time cometh, the day approacheth: let not the buyer rejoice, and let not the seller trouble himself; for wrath cometh upon the whole multitude thereof. Ezekiel 7:13. For the seller will not return to that which was sold, even though his life were still among the living: for the prophecy against its whole multitude will not turn back; and no one will strengthen himself as to his life through his iniquity. Ezekiel 7:14. They blow the trumpet and make everything ready; but no one goeth into the battle: for my wrath cometh upon all their multitude. - The rod is already prepared; nothing will be left of the ungodly. This is the leading thought of the strophe. The three clauses of Ezekiel 7:10 are synonymous; but there is a gradation in the thought. The approaching fate springs up out of the earth (יצא, applied to the springing up of plants, as in 1 Kings 5:13; Isaiah 11:1, etc.); it sprouts as a rod, and flowers as pride. Matteh, the rod as an instrument of chastisement (Isaiah 10:5). This rod is then called za equals dho4n, pride, inasmuch as God makes use of a proud and violent people, namely the Chaldeans (Habakkuk 1:6.; Jeremiah 50:31 seq.), to inflict the punishment. Sprouting and blossoming, which are generally used as figurative representations of fresh and joyous prosperity, denote here the vigorous growth of that power which is destined to inflict the punishment. Both châmâs (violence) and zâdhōn (pride) refer to the enemy who is to chastise Israel. The violence which he employs rises up into the chastening rod of "evil," i.e., of ungodly Israel. In Ezekiel 7:11 the effect of the blow is described in short, broken sentences. The emotion apparent in the frequent repetition of לא is intensified by the omission of the verb, which gives to the several clauses the character of exclamations. So far as the meaning is concerned, we have to insert יהיה in thought, and to take מן ekat o in a partitive sense: there will not be anything of them, i.e., nothing will be left of them (the Israelites, or the inhabitants of the land). מהם (of them) is explained by the nouns which follow. המון and the ἁπ. λεγ. לחולםÅ¡, plural of הם or המה, both derivatives of המה, are so combined that המון signifies the tumultuous multitude of people, המה the multitude of possessions (like המון, Isaiah 60:2; Psalm 37:16, etc.). The meaning which Hvernick assigns to hâmeh, viz., anxiety or trouble, is unsupported and inappropriate. The ἁπ λεγ. נהּ is not to be derived from נהה, to lament, as the Rabbins affirm; or interpreted, as Kimchi - who adopts this derivation - maintains, on the ground of Jeremiah 16:4., as signifying that, on account of the multitude of the dying, there will be no more lamentation for the dead. This leaves the Mappik in ה unexplained. נהּ is a derivative of a root נוהּ; in Arabic, na equals ha, elata fuit res, eminuit, magnificus fuit; hence ,נהּres magnifica. When everything disappears in such a way as this, the joy occasioned by the acquisition of property, and the sorrow caused by its loss, will also pass away (Ezekiel 7:12). The buyer will not rejoice in the property he has bought, for he will not be able to enjoy it; and the seller will not mourn that he has been obliged to part with his possession, for he would have lost it in any case.

(Note: "It is a natural thing to rejoice in the purchase of property, and to mourn over its sale. But when slavery and captivity stare you in the face, rejoicing and mourning are equally absurd." - Jerome.)

The wrath of God is kindled against their whole multitude; that is to say, the judgment falls equally upon them all. The suffix in המונהּ refers, as Jerome has correctly shown, to the "land of Israel" (admath, Yisrâeel) in Ezekiel 7:2, i.e., to the inhabitants of the land. The words, "the seller will not return to what he has sold," are to be explained from the legal regulations concerning the year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25, according to which all landed property that had been sold was to revert to its original owner (or his heir), without compensation, in the year of jubilee; so that he would then return to his mimkâr (Leviticus 25:14, Leviticus 25:27-28). Henceforth, however, this will take place no more, even if היּתם, their (the sellers') life, should be still alive (sc., at the time when the return to his property would take place, according to the regulations of the year of jubilee), because Israel will be banished from the land. The clause 'ועוד בּחיּים ה is a conditional circumstantial clause. The seller will not return (לא ישׁוּב) to his possession, because the prophecy concerning the whole multitude of the people will not return (לא), i.e., will not turn back (for this meaning of שׁוּב, compare Isaiah 45:23; Isaiah 55:11). As לא ישׁוּב corresponds to the previous לא ישׁוּב, so does חזון את־כּל המונהּ to חרון אל־כּל־המונהּ in Ezekiel 7:12. In the last clause of Ezekiel 7:13, חיּתו is not to be taken with בּעונו in the sense of "in the iniquity of his life," which makes the suffix in בּעונו superfluous, but with יתחזּקוּ, the Hithpael being construed with the accusative, "strengthen himself in his life." Whether these words also refer to the year of jubilee, as Hvernick supposes, inasmuch as the regulation that every one was to recover his property was founded upon the idea of the restitution and re-creation of the theocracy, we may leave undecided; since the thought is evidently simply this: ungodly Israel shall be deprived of its possession, because the wicked shall not obtain the strengthening of his life through his sin. This thought leads on to Ezekiel 7:14, in which we have a description of the utter inability to offer any successful resistance to the enemy employed in executing the judgment. There is some difficulty connected with the word בּתּקוע, since the infin. absolute, which the form תּקוע seems to indicate, cannot be construed with either a preposition or the article. Even if the expression ּבתּקוע תּקעוּ in Jeremiah 6:1 was floating before the mind of Ezekiel, and led to his employing the bold phrase ּבתּקוע, this would not justify the use of the infinitive absolute with a preposition and the article. תּקוע must be a substantive form, and denote not clangour, but the instrument used to sound an alarm, viz., the shōphâr (Ezekiel 33:3). הכין, an unusual form of the inf. abs. (see Joshua 7:7), used in the place of the finite tense, and signifying to equip for war, as in Nahum 2:4. הכּל, everything requisite for waging war. And no one goes into the battle, because the wrath of God turns against them (Leviticus 26:17), and smites them with despair (Deuteronomy 32:30).